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Principal investigators:
Eric Groenendyk
University of Memphis
Email: grnendyk@memphis.edu
Homepage: https://sites.google.com/site/ericgroenendyk
Antoine Banks
University of Maryland
Email: abanks12@umd.edu
Homepage: https://gvpt.umd.edu/facultyprofile/banks/antoine
Sample size: 2030
Field period: 06/23/2021-02/04/2022
H1: Across the scenarios written to exemplify the four conceptualizations of racism, we predict greater willingness to answer in the affirmative when the affirmative response option is labeled “racial insensitivity” or “racial injustice” compared to when it is labeled “racism.”
H2: We expect labeling effects to be larger in cases where scenarios are designed to exemplify newer conceptualizations of racism (subtle racism, institutional racism, and colorblind racism) compared to older conceptualizations of racism (explicit racism).
H3: We expect more people to agree that “racial injustice” is still a significant problem in the United States compared to “racism.”
H4: We expect higher levels of support for policies when they are said to be designed to address “racial injustice” or “racial insensitivity” compared to when they are said to be designed to address “racism.”
Conceptualization Measures: Participants read eight scenarios and decided whether or not each one constituted an instance of racism (racial insensitivity/ racial injustice). Each of the four conceptualizations of racism was captured using two scenarios, so responses to these scenarios were combined to create a single measure for each conceptualization, yielding four variables. Each variable was rescaled to run from 0 to 1.
Problem Measure: Participants indicated whether or not they believed racism (racial insensitivity/racial injustices) is still a significant problem in the United States.
Policy Measures: Participants indicated the degree to which they supported or opposed two policies designed to address racism (racial insensitivity/ racial injustice).
Participants were significantly more likely (p = .004) to indicate that scenarios designed to represent the concept of colorblind racism constituted racial injustice (.378) compared to racism (.323). However, they were not more likely (p = .535) to indicate that scenarios designed to represent the concept of institutional racism constituted racial injustice (.643) compared to racism (.631).
Participants were also significantly more likely (p <.0001) to indicate that the scenarios designed to represent the concept of subtle racism constituted racial insensitivity (.461) compared to racism (.355). However, they were not more likely (p =.720) to indicate that scenarios designed to represent the concept of explicit racism constituted racial insensitivity (.895) compared to racism (.891).
Contrary to expectations, participants appear to have been slightly less likely to acknowledge that racial injustice (.742) is still a significant problem in the United States compared to racism (.775), but the effect is only marginally significant (p=.084). The experimental treatment had no significant effect on either of the two policy measures: racial sensitivity training to address racism (racial insensitivity) among government employees (racism = .669; racially insensitivity =.670, p = .939) or government action to address racism (racial injustice) (racism =.678; racial injustice = .674, p =.786). Note: All tests are two-tailed, and all variables are scaled to run from 0 to 1.